The earthwork, a raised or embanked boundary of earth and soil, often predates or accompanies a later structure, marking out a defended or ceremonial space. Here, the relationship between the two is the quietly odd thing. The earthwork does not merely survive alongside the castle ruin; it frames it, the castle sitting at its centre as though the enclosure were always intended to hold it.

Anglo-Norman castle building in Kerry followed the broader pattern of conquest and consolidation that spread across Ireland from the late twelfth century onward, as Norman lords pushed into Munster and began raising stone fortifications to secure their holdings. The presence of a rectangular earthwork at the same site suggests layers of occupation or planning that do not reduce neatly to a single period. Rectangular earthworks are less common in Ireland than their circular equivalents, and their origins can vary considerably, from medieval field boundaries and bawn enclosures to earlier defensive works reused by later occupants. A bawn, to clarify the term, is an enclosing wall or bank around a tower house or castle, designed to protect livestock and provide a first line of defence. Whether the earthwork at Parkavonear served a similar function, or predates the castle entirely, is not something the surviving fabric answers simply.